CBS/Sony Classical has been accompanying superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma for decades on his journey through the unsurpassed works written for his instrument by Johann Sebastian Bach. The label is now pleased to announce the release of important landmarks from that journey, Yo-Yo Ma Plays Bach, on a single CD. Ma’s first recording of Bach’s six Solo Suites, which went on to win the Grammy for “Best Classical Instrumental Performance” and is represented here by the Sarabande from the Sixth Suite, took place in 1982. In the same year, Yo-Yo Ma recorded Bach’s complete sonatas for viola da gamba with harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper which was hailed by Gramophone as “intelligent and expressive.”
Yo-Yo Ma’s explorations of Bach have also taken him far beyond his instrument’s core repertoire to some highly enterprising collaborations with the Baroque specialist Ton Koopman. Inspired by Bach’s own practice of recycling his music, the renowned Dutch conductor-organist transcribed a selection of Bach works for solo cello and chamber ensemble, and in 1998 Sony recorded these pieces with Ma playing a Baroque cello, alongside Koopman and musicians from his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra playing period instruments.
Finally, as an encore, the album offers the Fancy on Bach Air created for Yo-Yo Ma by John Corigliano and recorded by the cellist in 1999. The American composer based this rhapsodic seven-minute piece on the Prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1. Wrote ClassicsToday.com, “The music not only sings but also speaks through Yo-Yo Ma s generous cello mastery.”